5 comments to Fun with math

Query: Are you remembering to lower the effect of +healing from downranking? This may or may not apply to the bonus from your Libram or from Blessing of Light.

One problem that was an issue pre-expansion was exactly what you just mentioned. People would get a hojillion +healing, then use something like rank 4 Greater Heal, which would give them really good heals for a ridiculously low Mana cost. This was an unintended use of game mechanics. Because of this Blizzard, at the expansion, lowered the effect that +healing or +damage gives on your less than max rank spells. The farther down you go in spell ranks, the less effect from +healing each one gets. I don’t remember the equation, but you can pretty well bet that your Flash of Light will get almost no effect from your +healing gear.

At the moment I’m not downranking on anything. I’m still playing with the numbers to figure out where the best benefit is found. For most trash pulls the damage is so minimal and my mana pool is so big I just stick with max rank Flash of Light and call it good.

Downranking is great for grinding — after every fight spam low rank FoL on yourself until you’re full. I use rank 2 which is free with my gear, which is crazy stacked with mp5. Combine with Blessing of Wisdom and Judgement of Wisdom and judicious use of high mana spells I can grind, grind grind without stopping to drink. Also, if I run OOM and I’m waiting for a mana pot to come off cooldown or the fight to end, the 400-600 hp heals per 1.5s cast is a whole lot better than nothing.

Also, throwing in a downranked Holy Light instead of a Flash every 15 seconds keeps your Holy Lights half a second faster when you need to drop a big heal on someone in a hurry.

Casts on my target if its friendly, or my target’s target if its not. If I hold alt it does the same thing but downranked. The target-of bit is great for solo because you never have to switch between yourself and your mob, and can be usful for bosses because you automatically switch heal targets when the boss switches aggro targets, plus you can watch the boss cast bars and whatnot. I’m not a huge fan of the latter because I want to be in control of my own healing. Plus I get aggro change notifications from my X-Perl unit frames these days, which is awesome beyond belief.